Many types of weapons such as rifles have weapon sights that allow the weapon's user to view a target within a scene and align the weapon relative to the target, e.g., to select a bullet impact point. A typical weapon sight includes a cross-hair reticle. The weapon sight is adjusted (“aligned”) so that the cross-hairs match the desired bullet impact point for a given target distance. The typical weapon sight is configured to mount to a military standard rail mount (“rail”) (e.g., MIL-STD 1913) that runs along the top and/or side of the weapon (forend and barrel).
A “night sight” weapon sight is used for night vision, while a “day sight” weapon sight is used for day vision. Some weapon sights have combined night-vision and day-vision capability. In some cases, a night-vision optical system (“night optic”) is used on a weapon in an in-line configuration in front of a primary day-vision optic system (“day optic”) to provide combined night and day vision capability. This is commonly known as a clip-on weapon sight.
FIG. 1 is an elevated view of a helmet 6 that includes a helmet mounting fixture 8 configured to receive and hold a helmet-mounted monocular night optic or “NV goggle” 10. The helmet mounting fixture 8 is located at the front of helmet 6 and allows for the NV goggle 10 to be flipped into and out of the viewing position in front of a user's eye or eyes. Binocular night-optic goggles can be formed from two NV goggles 10 with appropriate modification of helmet mounting fixture 8.
Presently, a weapon-mountable (WM) night optic is designed specifically to operate on a weapon while a night optic such as NV goggle 10 is typically designed to operate on a helmet or to be carried separately as a hand-held device. This results in situations where a soldier or like user has to carry two separate night optics: one for the weapon and one for the helmet or to be held by hand. This increases the load-carrying burden on the user, who typically already carries an abundance of other items such as supplies, communication equipment, ammunition, power sources, etc. In addition, at night a helmet-mounted NV goggle 10 has to be flipped out of the way in order for the user to look through the weapon sight, which includes the WM (clip-on) night optic.